At a Government Services Committee meeting on Monday, aldermen voted unanimously to approve an agreement with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that will allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to depict a narrower floodway path along creeks, specifically from Tyler Road to Indiana Avenue, in new flood insurance rate maps.

A narrower floodway would reduce the number of properties within the flood plain, said Public Works Director Peter Suhr.

"The larger floodway path is obviously undesirable for the city because it puts additional regulatory burden on the properties that are within the floodway," Suhr said. "To make it narrower is certainly a benefit."

The committee also voted in favor of awarding a $155,155 contract to HR Green, Inc., an engineering firm in McHenry that will develop concepts for structural and aesthetic improvements along the creek based on the new maps.

After the 100-year rainfall event in 2008 and major flooding in April 2013, the city realized the need to expand a flood insurance study for the two creeks and use that data to draw new maps.

"A myriad of other flooding issues along with those two events really has caused the city to look at this in greater detail," Suhr said. "The city's ultimate goal was to do this study to identify the real issues and to make improvements on the 7th Avenue Creek."

Suhr said he was not sure when FEMA would release the new maps, but that the development of those and improvements to the creeks' infrastructure would occur in tandem.

"You've got FEMA getting prepared to issue new maps and this is the time that the city needs to get on board and understand what those maps say and come up with solutions," Suhr said. "The timing's really perfect for this type of a project."

Both the maps and conceptual designs will be reviewed by the public in the coming months.

The full City Council will vote on the IDNR agreement and engineering contract at its Sept. 2 meeting.

"This is the beginning of a large improvement project and I think we're all kind of looking forward to taking it to the first step here," Suhr said.